2017-10-24 Open House

(A summary as received from a campus community member).

    775 persons signed on the attendance sheets in the Open House held on Tue 24th and many who came later could not sign, so around 850 to 900 attended the meeting. Speakers highlighted the fallout of the VH contract and its extension now to hall messes, the status of the old VH workers as well as the concerns of the community. Below is a brief summary and the resolution passed (its English translation) at the end of the meeting:

The VH was given out on a new contract model on 1st September, 2017 and 72 of its existing total staff of 74 were fired. The move was justified by the administration that it would bring 5 star quality service in the VH. After a lot of collective effort 28 of the 72 VH staff were taken back in the VH and it was promised that the remaining would be given employment in the Institute within a month. The experience from the new VH contract over the last two months have taught us that:

• The services of the VH have qualitatively deteriorated.

• There are flagrant labour law violations by the new contractor. Also the security of the Institute remains compromised because there is constant shuffling of workers brought in from faraway places.

• The running of the VH has been possible only because of the valuable experience of the older VH workers (28 who joined).

Unfortunately in spite of the above experience the Institute has proposed a very similar model to run the hostel messes – Per Student Per Day (PSPD) model. One of the main flaws of the model is the completely arbitrary fashion in which the labour component is worked out. In the VH it was not even mentioned, in the mess contracts whereas the existing model had minimum 40 workers for 45 students the PSPD (new) model proposes minimum 25 workers. This is likely to lead to widespread worker exploitation and deterioration in quality of service and food. This is unacceptable and we as a community have come together and demand the following:

1. Cancel the VH contract. Scrap the Per Student Per Day model in the messes.

2. Lay out a scientific and transparent guideline for deployment of manpower in all contracts.

3. It should be clearly mentioned in contracts that existing workers will be retained unless there are specific and proven complaints against any worker. This would ensure that we do not lose out experienced workers and also for the security of the Institute.